Stronger For the Fall
by Sebe
Summary: Coda to 8x23. What happens after isn't anything remarkable at all, not for them. They find their place with each other once more. Team Free Will fic. Cas POV.


Author's Notes: Impressions on finale made me write a bit. Cas didn't seem upset exactly as he watched the angels fall, more in shock. Sam's still in bad shape it seems, and Dean is confused and worried on Protect mode.

Summary: Coda to 8x23. What happens after isn't anything remarkable at all, not for them. They find their place with each other once more. Team Free Will fic. Cas POV.

**Stronger For the Fall**

Castiel looked up at the sky long after the last of his brethren had fallen. He stayed there, kneeling, for what seems an eternity and an instant. He has no concept of what time is to a human. He supposes he will have to learn.

"-as?…Cas? Hey-" The noises are vague to his ears as the passage of time had been to his mind. Millennia passing with only a blurred impression of what had occurred. All that time he hadn't known what to do with when he had no orders, all that information and history he had passed over as inconsequential…it all seemed so important suddenly. He felt as though he had so very little precious time to catch up on all the things he should have been paying attention to all along.

His chest was tight. Is this what humans felt? Would he always feel this? How did they go on? They kept going day after day, century after century, building things they knew they would never have time to complete, to understand, to atone for. There was so much…

"Cas." A hand on his shoulder roused Castiel, just a little. He knew the form beside him as no threat, though he didn't know how; he couldn't reach out on an imperceptible plane as he'd been able to before. Perhaps something remained, inherent in him, that refused to give way to humanity. Something that would always connect him to his fallen family, separate him from humanity, would keep him somewhere in between two identities for the rest of his existence, however long that may be now. None of them would never truly belong anywhere. "Cas, we're here."

The voice shook, the hand on his shoulder tightening and loosening awkwardly. Unsure, but determined. Winchester.

"Cas?"

Sam.

(He'd think later on how they found him, knew he was near them in the woods, on how Sam still resonated and glowed from the inside out and how those things related.

It struck him that, for all the wasted time he had been in existence, he knew these two brothers better than anyone in any time before. It was a strange thought that he couldn't keep hold of. Sam kneeled beside him. He wasn't sure for how long. Time, it seemed, would take him longer to understand.

He sensed the other one too. The one who had borne his brand for so long. It occurred to the former angel that only two beings in all existence had been cast into the Pit and walked out alive and with their own eyes. They had been flayed open and torn apart in ways that not even the angel he was just a short time ago could understand.

Only these two.

And he was the only one who had seen them both as raw as they were then. Had laid a hand on each of them and done his best to tear them out of their torment.

Castiel was again unsure why, but it made him feel special, warm. He had made a decision on his own, his very first, to stand with these two brothers who had defied the divine plan simply because of their love for one another. That decision to walk beside the Winchesters (but never between them because that could not be done) was the only one he could truly say he'd never regret.

Sam was next to him, but Dean held himself away. Far enough that Castiel could read the wariness and lingering hurt without any enhanced capabilities, but close enough that he could reach out to Sam if he had to. Never far away from little brother.

He was so far away…

"…There are no more of us…"

The stilted hand on his shoulder tightened resolutely. Sam shifted from kneeling, to firmly planting both knees in the dirt under him, settling down. Castiel felt the tremors run through Sam, knew he was not healed, the Trials were not done. All he could be was grateful.

Sam turned his head in Dean's direction. Whatever look was on his face, it galvanized the older brother into action and he came to stand behind Sam. They were all quiet and Castiel continued to look at the sky, truly empty for the first time since its creation.

A hand falling on his opposite shoulder again pulled him back. Castiel could hear the heavy tone that indicated Dean's pinched expression, the tightness and unhappy curl of his mouth; Uncomfortable with any emotion or display of affection outside of his brother. But here he was…

"There's only ever been one of you."

Castiel breathed, what he would later think of as the first true breath of his new existence. He blinked and, while he still saw the darkened sky, he could see the trees surrounding him too. What mattered more than what he saw was what he could feel.

On either side of him, a Winchester sat. The boys who defied destiny and heaven and hell, in this moment, this infinitesimal speck of time, remained at his side and shielded him from the same world they had saved. It was alright. For just this moment, it was alright.

Castiel closed his eyes and breathed.


End file.
